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People like Barack Obama, rationalizing his unsatisfactory economic stewardship, assured us that manufacturing was a thing of the past, and not coming back. Well, a funny thing happened following his departure:

In our recent weekly Liberty Update commentary entitled “On Pharmaceuticals, HHS Contemplates Disastrous New Price Controls,” we explain how government price controls undermine intellectual property (IP) rights, stifle American innovation and ultimately punish consumers in the form of fewer new pharmaceuticals. We therefore encourage the Trump Administration to rethink a toxic new proposal along those lines, and instead pursue a course more in accord with its generally excellent stewardship of our economy and markets to date.

In his latest weekly commentary entitled “Not Healthy to Be Naive,” John Stossel agrees, and in a nice blurb explains the real-world consequences of drug price controls:

[G]overnment-run systems save money by freeloading off American innovation. American drug companies, funded by American customers, fund most of the world’s research and development of pharmaceuticals. New drugs and devices are expensive, so sometimes in Britain, says Pope, ‘whenever a new drug comes on the market that can save lives, the government just doesn’t have the funds to pay for it.’

Patients, accustomed to accepting whatever government hands out, don’t even know about the advances available elsewhere. Single-payer systems also save money by rationing care. Hence the long waiting times for treatments declared ‘nonessential’ in Canada, Britain and, for that matter, at American veterans hospitals.”

While attention can be distracted by shiny objects elsewhere, a nice new illustration of the U.S. economy’s revitalization beginning in 2017, as the procession of deregulation and tax-cuts revitalized an economic cycle previously on weary legs: